582 U.S. 47 (2017)
Jose Morales was born in Puerto Rico in 1900 and acquired U.S. citizenship at birth.1 After living in Puerto Rico for nearly two decades, he left his childhood home on February 27, 1919, twenty days short of his nineteenth birthday, to take up employment in the Dominican Republic.2 He never returned to the United States.3 In 1959, at age nineteen, Jose fathered respondent Luis Ramon Morales-Santana with a Dominican woman to whom he was not married.4 Jose acknowledged paternity several years after the birth.5 He married the mother in 1970, after which his name was added to the child's birth certificate.6
Luis moved to the United States at age thirteen and has resided in this country most of his life.7 In 2000, following convictions for felonies including attempted murder, he was placed in removal proceedings.8 He claimed derivative U.S. citizenship through his father, but an immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals rejected the claim because Jose had not satisfied the ten-year physical-presence requirement applicable to unwed citizen fathers.9
The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed the Board of Immigration Appeals, holding that the gender-based distinction violated equal protection and that Morales-Santana was entitled to citizenship.10 The Supreme Court granted certiorari.11
Whether the gender-based distinction in the Immigration and Nationality Act's physical-presence requirements for transmission of citizenship by unwed U.S.-citizen parents violates the equal protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause?12
The equal protection principle implicit in the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause subjects gender-based classifications in laws granting or denying benefits on the basis of the sex of the qualifying parent to heightened scrutiny.13 The Government must show that the classification serves important governmental objectives and that the discriminatory means employed are substantially related to the achievement of those objectives.14 The classification must not rely on overbroad generalizations about the different talents, capacities, or preferences of males and females.15
Yes. The INA distinction imposes a one-year physical-presence requirement on unwed U.S.-citizen mothers under section 1409(c) but a ten-year requirement with five years after age fourteen on unwed U.S.-citizen fathers under sections 1401 and 1409(a).16 Jose Morales left Puerto Rico twenty days short of his nineteenth birthday and never returned, fathering Luis Ramon Morales-Santana at age nineteen without satisfying the longer requirement applicable to fathers.17 The gender line Congress drew is not substantially related to the goal of ensuring a connection between citizen parent and child.18
The scheme permits transmission through a mother with minimal presence while denying it to a father with substantial ties. It relies on overbroad generalizations about unwed fathers.19
The gender-based distinction violates the equal protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause.20
Related opinions on this issue
Joined by Justice Alito
Justice Thomas concurs in the judgment that Morales-Santana is not entitled to relief but does not join the equal protection analysis in Part II-B of the opinion.21 He continues to believe that this Court lacks power to grant relief to a party who has not suffered a constitutional injury.22 Thomas cites his prior separate opinions emphasizing limits on judicial authority to remedy claimed constitutional violations where no injury to the party before the Court has been established.23
His position rests on the view that the Court should not reach the merits of the equal protection claim when relief cannot be granted in any event.
Whether respondent Morales-Santana has third-party standing to assert his father's equal protection rights?24
A litigant may assert the constitutional rights of a third party when there is a close relationship between the litigant and the third party and a hindrance to the third party's ability to protect his own interests.25
Yes. Morales-Santana has a close relationship with his father Jose Morales as his biological son.26 Jose's death in 1975 creates a hindrance to Jose's ability to assert his own equal protection claim regarding the transmission of citizenship.27 The close relationship and hindrance requirements for third-party standing are therefore satisfied.28
Respondent Morales-Santana has third-party standing to assert his father's equal protection rights.29
Whether the appropriate remedy for any equal protection violation is to extend the one-year physical-presence requirement applicable to unwed mothers to unwed fathers or instead to apply the longer requirement uniformly?30
When a statute provides favorable treatment to one class and excludes another, the court must choose between extending the benefit or nullifying it, guided by legislative intent as to which course the legislature would have chosen.31 Extension is ordinarily preferred, but not when it would disrupt the statutory scheme by making an exception the general rule.32
No. Extending the one-year physical-presence requirement to unwed fathers would displace the longer physical-presence requirement that Congress established as the main rule for most cases involving transmission of citizenship.33 The proper remedy is to apply the longer requirement uniformly to both unwed mothers and fathers going forward.34 This leaves it to Congress to select a uniform prescription that neither favors nor disadvantages any person on the basis of gender.35
The appropriate remedy is to apply the longer physical-presence requirement uniformly rather than extending the one-year exception.36
Related opinions on this issue
Joined by Justice Alito
Justice Thomas agrees with the remedial holding that Morales-Santana is not entitled to relief.37 He concurs in the judgment reversing the Second Circuit because respondent cannot obtain relief in any event.38 Thomas expresses skepticism that the Court has the power to provide relief of the sort requested, namely conferral of citizenship on a basis other than that prescribed by Congress.39
He would not decide the equal protection or standing questions given the remedial barrier, emphasizing that the Court's authority to confer citizenship is limited to the terms set by statute.